


Meteor Garden

by Galahard



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Hartwin Secret Santa, Hartwin!Lite...sorry!, I really loved this prompt, M/M, Meet in MMORPG, Video Game AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-11
Updated: 2016-08-11
Packaged: 2018-08-08 02:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,251
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7739149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Galahard/pseuds/Galahard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: AU - Video game AU/theme. Perhaps our heroes meet on an MMO. Perhaps they are the elfin rogue and the dashing paladin of dragon-slaying video games. Who knows? You do!</p>
<p>***</p>
<p>So I tweaked it a little but there is a video game, it is an MMORPG, and there is a rogue as well as a knight that has slain a dragon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Meteor Garden

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cortesia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cortesia/gifts).



Merlin pushed away from the desk, and for just a split second Eggsy thought he might forget that he still had his headset on and plugged in, and turned so he’d have a better view if he did. There had been several close calls in the past couple of years but he had always stopped at the last second and had never actually been yanked backwards. 

Unfortunately, the man remembered in time, lowering the headset to rest around his neck as he spun his chair to face them. “It looks like we have our winner.”

“The fuck?”

His voice was incredulous, but Roxy’s was barely more composed when she spoke up as well. “It’s barely been nineteen hours.”

“Maintenance ended at 5:47 this morning,” Merlin stated, twisting back to his computer and typing furiously.

Fuck. It was just now 1:15am, and their huge anniversary event, with a prize of coming out to the studio to meet them and to design an NPC for the game, had been finished in less than a day, something that none of them had thought possible.

“It was Galahad wasn’t it?” He wasn’t sure how he knew, he’d been resolutely not looking at player progress throughout the day, having realized once they actually started the competition that they didn’t actually clean their studio much beyond taking out the trash every week. Then to work off his nerves he’d went and camped out as a level nine thief in the beginners area and assisted helpless little newbies until they at least reached level five. It was never too early to try to teach players the value of a friendly community.

“He signed in at 5:48, and he barely stopped except to take tea at 4.”

“Fucking hell.”

Roxy seemed completely unphased, but the gleam in her eye was enough to tell him that she was just as impressed as they were. 

“Merlin, go ahead and post the announcement that the main prize has been won, but that they can still search for the meteor to get the anniversary items. Eggsy, pull up his registration information and I’ll send out the congratulatory email as soon as you give me the details. Then we can actually all go home and to sleep at a decent hour, and if everything crashes and burns we’ll deal with in the morning.”

*** 

_Meteor Garden_ was his brainchild. Oh, it was Roxy’s too, she’d been the first one he’d told his idea to, and they’d worked on the details of it together almost from the beginning. 

In the near future a meteor veered off course and crashed to earth, disrupting electricity and communications worldwide. With the sudden loss of many forms of transportation and other things people had come to rely on, chaos threatened to overtake the United Kingdom. Until she came. Genesis had been a vague form in his mind, but Roxy had taken the character and breathed life into her, an ordinary woman who’d been the first to find the meteor, and therefore the first to develop the ability to utilize magic, and the strongest. 

The sorceress then began to call for any who would aid her, sending them on quests to collect meteorites and meteor fragments, offering rewards to those that would help her in her unknown mission, and those that dealt with the fragments soon found themselves developing powers of their own, powers that could fuel new types of technologies now that electricity could no longer be harnessed.

Somehow between him and Roxy things just fell into place, and when Roxy’s Uncle James had introduced them to Merlin, their ideas began to actually take shape. It still seemed impossible that the man had coded the majority of the game himself, almost as impossible as them managing to get a contract with renowned artist “Princess” Tilde to do their character designs; apparently fate herself was determined that their game would come together.

Still, they’d all been startled by the reception they’d gotten. Overloaded servers had been only one of their problems, but they received favorable reviews when users could manage to play without too much lag. On the other hand they’d had to deal with pointless anger from people who had been in the business longer and felt like they didn’t deserve success on their first try. Regardless, the mix of the urban, slightly futuristic setting combined with traditional fantasy rpg roles had just struck the right cord with certain factions of the gaming community, and their fans were dedicated.

It was still almost unreal to think that he’d just pulled his life together in the past few years. That he had went from a no one mooching off his mum to someone that had signed up for a community ed course to now, where he had the rights to 34% of a game that was (albeit marginally) profitable. And sure, going home meant walking upstairs where all three of them lived together in a flat in order to save money, but it was something. 

Their game had actually lasted a full year and was still growing rather than dying out, and that meant celebrations were in order. And he was perfectly fine if all that was was a pint followed by a date with his pillow.

*** 

Getting ready for work was normally the easiest thing in the world. If no one had been pulling an all nighter then the first one to wake up had to stumble over to the coffee pot to turn it on, then it was a matter of showering if you needed it, eating or grabbing something to eat later, and meandering downstairs to see what fresh hell had happened the moment they’d taken a break. His favorite thing to do when he logged in was to go through the bot reports, banning them gleefully until he was fully awake, then actually looking into other concerns.

This morning was different though, and he stood staring into his wardrobe with a sinking feeling as absolutely nothing stood out to him. Today was Galahad’s studio visit, so his ratty sweats wouldn’t do, or at least they didn’t feel right for the occasion. The winner of their little competition wasn’t exactly an average player after all.

Not that he knew all that much about the man, just what they knew about his birthday from his registration specs and a name. Of course, that information was easy enough to find online, it was clearly stated in the “About” column on _Kingsman_ , the man’s blog. And it was the blog that set Galahad apart.

Apparently Galahad had retired, and having found himself with too much free time, started playing games. However, he had struggled with finding game reviews tailored to his interests, and had decided to start his own blog, offering reviews from an older standpoint, that didn’t follow the same guidelines as other reviewers did, and he had a different audience as a result, and a growing one. Eggsy hadn’t known a single thing about all of this, until _Kingsman_ had posted a review of _Meteor Garden_.

As with any new game, they had issues. They had lag, they had crashes, and they had glitches. Plus they had arseholes actively trying to cause all of those problems, and coming up with new ones. Despite their testing stages issues cropped up constantly, and as they worked past the point of exhaustion, calling in all sorts of favors when they could, their game was struggling as people started to drift away, tired of the growing pains.

Until _Kingsman_. A single review from a blog he’d never even heard of, and their user base changed. And grew.

Since then Galahad had been one of their most consistent players, while still managing to not be a wanker. He’d started as a squire, worked his way to knight, and stayed there, sticking to the most classical looking armour and items he could find, and developing a persona in game that was as chivalrous as the actual knights of legend. Eggsy’d watched him willingly help out characters of a much lower level with a quest for no gain, and watched him let other people have first shot at the loot, even if there was a piece that would be perfect for him that some bloody mage picked up instead.

So then Eggsy had signed in to his favorite account, a rogue that was consistently a few levels below the top players, and Galahad had been a complete and utter gentleman. They’d run through quests together a few times here and there, and on a particularly hard one where their cleric seemed to think that healing themselves to 100% any time they dropped a single hit point was more important than keeping the tank alive, they’d wound up starting up a private chat, and Eggsy had discovered the knight’s wicked sense of humour.

It was actually hard to avoid the man in game, and if it weren’t for the fact that he played across several accounts to hear what people of all levels were saying, he’d probably have wound up joining the Kingsman guild or something else equally ridiculous.

So of course it was Galahad who had won, and it was Galahad that was going to show up in less than an hour, and he had absolutely nothing to wear that even made him look semi professional and not like a guy that stayed in a dim room gaming to all hours of the night.

“I’m going to head down now.”

There was a hint of amusement in Roxy’s voice as she spoke from the doorway of his room, and she only grinned when he turned to glance at her. As usual she had managed to make rolling out of bed look flawless.

“It doesn’t really matter what you grab, it’ll be an Adidas shirt or an Adidas jacket, so why not grab both and let’s go? And don’t wear those jeans, the dark wash makes your arse look better.”

“Fuck off,” he grumbled as she left the doorway with a laugh, reaching in and grabbing one of his newer polos and hesitating before grabbing a jacket with yellow stripes. He didn’t really have to impress anyone, this was all about the studio and the game after all.

He reminded himself of that as he pulled on the dark wash jeans.

*** 

He’d barely made it down the stairs when the buzzer rang, easily ten minutes early, and a moment later Galahad was walking into their studio, Roxy gesturing to the small room as if it was actually something to see.

Well, it was something, that was for sure. The walls were coated with art, maps, tables, and other diagrams, and for once all the lights were on so it was easy to see them. Each of them had their own set up, with several screens apiece, and there was one table that was their meeting area, currently graced with the prototype statue for one of their first pieces of collector’s merchandise.

But as panicked as he was to have a stranger walk into their studio, and as anxious as he was about the things that hadn’t been picked up, he was still distracted by the appearance of Galahad.

Older men that sat around playing video games and blogging for a living weren’t supposed to be so damn fit.

It was a rather mortifying thought to have as he found himself staring without the self control to look away, especially not when the man looked at him and smiled.

“Good morning, I’m Harry Hart.” He transferred his umbrella to his left hand, holding out his right for a handshake, and at least that was something he could manage to do.

“Yeah, I heard you was coming,” the words were out of his mouth before he could think, Roxy quirking an eyebrow and clearly smirking as he moved forward gracelessly to shake the man’s hand. “I’m Eggsy, and that over there is Merlin.”

He turned to look over his shoulder, to where Merlin was still facing his computer and tapping away at the keyboard. “Oi, Merlin, ain’t you going to come say hello to our visitor?”

Eggsy turned back to face Harry and quickly released his grip on the older man’s hand as he realized he was still gripping it, trying to cover his mortification. “You’re Galahad, yeah?”

“Indeed, and it’s been a pleasure playing your game. So, this is the _Meteor Garden_ studio, it’s not quite what I expected. Do your other employees work from home?”

“For the most part it’s just the three of us.” He was grateful that Roxy had decided to field the question, she was far better than him at actually managing to come across as an adult. “We’ve hired some contractors here and there when we have something major going on, and for some of our character designs as I’m sure you know, but this,” she gestured around the room, “is where most of the magic happens.”

“Just the three of you? For a game of _Meteor Garden_ ’s size? And you two are quite young, younger than I thought you’d be.”

For some reason Eggsy could feel the back of his neck heating up, but he wasn’t angry or even upset. “Well Rox and I come up with the story and shit, it’s really Merlin that’s the coding genius and actually makes everything happen. We couldn’t do it without him.”

“Well, no offense to Merlin, but it’s the ah--story and shit that captivated me.”

For a moment he didn’t know what to say, staring up at Harry seemed to be all that his brain could handle, or why he was apparently short circuiting.

Thankfully Roxy jumped in to rescue him. “Thanks for that, Merlin doesn’t need any boosts to his ego whatsoever, but we certainly don’t mind. Honestly though, this is Eggsy’s brainchild, he just keeps me around to bounce ideas off of. Well, that and I’m the best at actually balancing out character stats and naming things.”

“Who’s idea was it for the anniversary event.”

“Mine,” Merlin called out from his chair, probably without even turning to look, and Roxy rolled her eyes.

“Merlin reminded us about the anniversary coming up and suggested an event if we wanted it coded in time, but Eggsy completely came up with the quest plot and path. I helped with some of the mechanics. We tend to collaborate quite a lot with us all being so close together.”

“It was an excellent story, I’m just glad I woke up at the right time in order to play through it. Plus it gave me the perfect excuse to avoid lunch with an an old colleague. The final boss for the event was quite a challenge.”

“That boss was fucking ace, Merlin’s got a thing for dragons and it just seemed like a bloody good time to bring one in.” 

“Well, the concept of meteor shards embedding in animals to create monsters does leave you with a lot of opportunities, but I was legitimately surprised when slaying the dragon and collecting the larger meteorite returned his remains to human.”

“Right, we just wanted to introduce that question of whether or not monsters should be slain indiscriminately, because so far it’s been rather straightforward that your character is doing what needs to be done for the good of everyone.” He was leaning forward unintentionally, shoulders loosening as he slipped into the topic he was most comfortable with.

“But my favorite part of this bit is Gazelle. I mean, Roxy did an absolutely bloody amazing job of creating someone so devoted that they’d stand beside a dragon and face off against the world, and Tilde’s design of her is fucking flawless. I knew as soon as I thought of her that I wanted her to be an assassin, to add that speed element to the fight to really make the pair of them a bitch to face, and that was part of why we wanted the final battle to be a solo event. Actually, the best class to go against them was a summoner, so we were all bloody impressed with your run through. Fuck, it only took you four tries, it actually took me six with my rogue, and I knew of some of the weaknesses to exploit, thought Rox still kept a few tricks secret from even me.”

It was only when he paused to take a breath that he realized how much he’d been talking, but rather than annoyed or even amused Harry just seemed interested. “A rogue? I thought you sounded familiar, by any chance are you Eggcellent?”

“Fucking ace, you got it, yeah that’s me. Well, one of them. Do you remember that quest in Sherwood forest with--”

“The cleric? The idiot that didn’t realize that if your tank dies you’re almost guaranteed to lose?”

“That’s the one. Leaving the rest of them downed and defeating the boss with just the two of us was one of the highlights of my gameplays, and trust me, I’ve played a lot.”

“Well now I understand why you refused to take the meteor dust and the other equips to sell. It was a very profitable run for me.”

“Yeah, I mostly just took the rogue drop so it wouldn’t look too suspicious.”

A throat cleared, and suddenly he was reminded that Roxy and Merlin were still in the room, doubtlessly laughing at them. “Oh fuck, right, um actually we were going to have you talk to Merlin first, he’s got a project to work on soon and it’s not too good if he gets interrupted in the middle of something. Don’t worry about him too much though, so long as you get him warm caffeine he’s good, and we brewed a fresh pot of coffee earlier. Shit, didn’t want nothing did you? We’ve got tea too, and Coke but it’s warm in case Merlin gets desperate.”

“I’m fine for now,” Harry replied with a smile, and Eggsy watched him move toward Merlin’s desk, for the first time completely relaxed about inviting someone in.

*** 

“I apologize,” Roxy said, and he had the strangest feeling that she was lying. “I just got a call from my mum and I’ve got to visit my Uncle James in the hospital, he’s got a splitting pain in his back and we’re not sure if he’ll need surgery or what. Merlin is actually a friend of his so he’s going with me. I understand we had this scheduled for a full day and we were supposed to work on your NPC design, but I’m afraid we really do have to go.”

“Please, don’t worry about it,” Harry insisted, and if he’d had to bet on a reaction from the man that was the one he’d have expected. Harry Hart was a fucking gentleman, and his morning had done nothing but prove it wasn’t an act. “Family comes first.”

“Thank you for being so understanding. Please let us know what would work with your schedule and we’ll schedule another meeting later on, but for now, since Eggsy isn’t going to the hospital,” she was looking at him now, and he had no idea what signals she was trying to send him. “Eggsy, why don’t you take Harry out to lunch, put it on the company card? We already have reservations at a great spot nearby and we did promise lunch in Harry’s invitation.”

“Only if you don’t mind it just being the two of us, Harry, I’ll do my best to answer whatever questions you can come up with.”

“No, I don’t mind. Roxy, Merlin, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. Best wishes to your Uncle on a speedy recovery.”

“Likewise, and thank you,” Roxy said with a smile. “If you ever want to get ahold of me I’m Roxstar, with an x of course. And Merlin is, naturally, Merlin, but I think everyone knows that. Eggsy, can you lock up?”

They were out of the room in what felt like seconds, and Eggsy shrugged as they moved toward the door. “Wish I could tell you it ain’t always this hectic, but I’m afraid it is. Normally it’s something game related though, some amateur hacker wanting some practice or something like that, or none of us being able to come up with a name for yet another circlet.”

“I rather like it the way things are,” Harry admitted, pausing to let him lock up before walking quickly to hold open the door leading outside. “Visiting the studio clarified quite a bit for me. It’s easy to see why the game maintains it’s high quality when you consider how many people are involved. With just the three of you as permanent employees you don’t have different people writing arcs and scripts. I certainly prefer waiting for a solid and meaningful update than having something with constantly changing content that sometimes contradicts itself. The three of you do an exemplary job with the game.”

His neck was burning again, and he increased their pace slightly to take his mind off of it, Harry’s long legs beside him eating up the distance. “Yeah, well, we’d probably be another forgotten game by now if it wasn’t for you actually. We’ve got you to thank for your game review, it really got us a lot of attention. Even had a couple of other reviewers pick us up after that, and I know at least one of those was because they saw your post.”

“Trust me Eggsy, there are absolutely no thanks necessary on your part. I quite fell in love with your game, and it was a genuine pleasure writing about it. I doubt that I really gave you that much exposure in the grand scheme of things.”

“Pretty sure you did actually. Ah, this is the place.” This time he was able to get to the door first, opening it to usher Harry inside.

*** 

He honestly wasn’t sure how he could drag out lunch any longer, because if he did it’d be time for tea, and if Roxy saw that on the receipt he’d never hear the end of it.

They’d talked about the game as they’d waited for lunch to arrive, reliving some of their quests together and some of the sillier things that had happened within the community, but at some point between getting their salads and getting their entrees they’d transitioned into talking about other things. There’d been a moment when he’d been showing Harry a picture of his little sister on his phone that he’d realized how absolutely nothing about their meal felt like business, but he’d managed to keep his composure and ask Harry about how he’d managed to retire so early.

Apparently Harry wasn’t exactly cleared to talk about the specifics, but from the vague hints he did give, and what he could actually say, he was pretty sure the man had been an agent of some sort. The kind that traveled. Which was pretty damn impressive if he thought about it, and pretty much explained why the guy was so fit.

They’d stalled over getting dessert, and Eggsy had finally insisted when he realized that not getting dessert would end their meal. Now he was absolutely stuffed, and their waiter had stopped bothering to give them dirty looks (or refilling their drinks) a good half hour ago. 

It didn’t make it any easier to actually stop their conversation. “Sorry bruv, but I think I’ve got to get back, yeah? With Roxy and Merlin both out someone needs to be around to keep an eye on shit, and I’ve been gone for a bit longer than I meant to.”

“Ah, I’ve been keeping you, I believe an apology is due on my end then.”

“Fuck no, it’s been bloody amazing. I don’t really get to talk about this shit with a lot of people.”

They made it to the door, and Harry gestured down the street. “I actually parked by your studio, so I’ll walk with you if that’s alright.”

“That’s fine,” he nodded, and then they fell into silence.

Perhaps the oddest part about it was that it wasn’t really that awkward, even when his knuckles brushed against Harry’s hand a time or two.

It didn’t start being awkward until they made it to the studio, and he turned to look up at Harry, searching his eyes for what he wasn’t exactly sure.

“I was glad to find out you had won,” he admitted, and was rewarded with a small smile tugging at the corners of Harry’s mouth.

“If I’d lost after staying up past midnight I wouldn’t have been pleased.”

He snorted, mostly because it was ridiculous, but also because he somewhat believed it. After all, if someone naturally woke up early enough to be there when maintenance ended then Harry was probably used to early evenings.

“So uh, thanks for coming out,” he offered, sticking his hand out for a handshake, not really sure what else to do and after a slight pause Harry returned the gesture.

“My pleasure.”

“Let us know when you want to come back to work on your NPC, yeah?”

“Of course, have a good day, Eggsy.”

He watched as the man strolled leisurely toward a car, his keys in the door before Eggsy actually called out.

“Hey uh, you want go on a quest together sometime?”

Harry looked up, a bemused smile on his face. “I thought you’d never ask.”


End file.
